The air inside the inn was thick with the heavy steam of mystery stews, the rhythmic clatter of cheap ceramic, and the background drone of people who simply liked the sound of their own voices. It wasn't an oppressive atmosphere; it was just a typical, mundane evening.
Behind the counter, Madam Da-li sat completely detached from the noise. She was casually turning the pages of a book titled Black Bang in the Medieval Times. She didn't look like an omnipotent hidden master; she just looked like an annoyed business owner who had very little interest in her current reality.
Beside her, Yuna stood as a silent sentinel. Her focus wasn't supernatural—it was just the sharp, weary vigilance of a teenager keeping an eye on rowdy customers to make sure no one left without paying.
Then the front door creaked open, and a group of adventurers stepped inside.
They lacked the hollow, thousand-yard stare of veterans who had buried too many comrades, but they also lacked the bright, suicidal optimism of rookies. They carried themselves with the quiet, practiced efficiency of mid-tier professionals.
Yuna offered a brief, entirely mechanical bow.
"Welcome. Rooms, or are you just here to line your stomachs?"
The leader stepped forward. He looked like a man constructed entirely out of high confidence and poor financial choices. He flashed Yuna a grin that he undoubtedly thought was charming.
"Oh, dear lord—what a cutie!"
Yuna's face remained entirely blank. She had seen a thousand idiots exactly like him.
"Separate rooms for the guys and the girls," he continued, sniffing the air with an appreciative grunt. "And whatever is bubbling in that pot, we're eating it. All of it."
Before he could finish, one of his companions dug an elbow sharply into his ribs.
"Ow! What was that for?"
The companion didn't answer. He was staring directly past Yuna, his eyes locked on the woman behind the counter.
"She's... beautiful," he muttered, completely caught off guard.
"What are you—"
The leader, Andrew, turned around. Then, he stopped dead in his tracks.
The smug confidence drained from his face in a comical sequence of confusion, sudden realization, and sheer, pale-faced disbelief. It was the look of a man who had accidentally stepped on a landmine and was trying to remember if he'd paid his life insurance.
"No way..."
At the counter, the book closed with a soft thud. Da-li looked up, her expression perfectly pleasant and entirely unbothered.
"Sandrew," she said. "You've grown. Mostly horizontally, it looks like."
Andrew looked as if his soul had briefly detached from his body.
"It's ANDREW! Lady Da-li, you still can't get the name right!" He practically tripped over a stool trying to get closer to the counter, his voice dropping to a frantic whisper. "You're... you're actually here? Running a kitchen?"
"It's peaceful," Da-li said, leaning her chin on her palm. "You should try peace sometime. It does wonders for the blood pressure."
Andrew let out a breathless, borderline hysterical laugh, gesturing wildly to his confused party.
"Peaceful. She says it's peaceful. You lot have absolutely no idea whose roof you're under right now."
"We're starting to get the hint," one of the party members muttered, shifting uncomfortably.
"SSS+ rank," Andrew whispered, his voice laced with an old, deeply rooted dread. "The kind of monster they use to scare children into behaving."
Yuna's eyes widened slightly. She looked at her mother—the woman who spent forty-five minutes this morning arguing with a merchant over the price of bruised eggs—and tried to reconcile the image.
"You're being loud, Sandrew," Da-li sighed, tapping her fingers on the wood.
"Some things never change," Andrew laughed, though his posture instantly corrected. He offered a sincere, deeply respectful bow. "It's good to see you, Lady Da-li."
"Sit down," she replied dryly. "Before you embarrass yourself further. You're making the regulars nervous."
Later that evening, the party gathered around a corner table. The general noise of the inn had settled into a low, hushed murmur.
"Tell me about your adventures," Yuna asked quietly, her mask of indifference cracking just enough to reveal a sliver of genuine curiosity.
Da-li glanced at her daughter, noting the faint eagerness beneath her practical demeanor. She smiled softly. "Alright—"
"Lady Da-li!" Andrew interrupted, leaning back with a nostalgic grin. "Join us! It's been years. These kids need to hear how a real pro does it."
Da-li patted Yuna's head. "I'll tell you the unembellished versions later, sweetie. I promise."
She stood up and walked over to the table. "It would be rude to refuse a guest," she said, her voice carrying a smooth, polite edge that made the hair on the back of the rookie's necks stand up.
"I learned everything from her," Andrew told his party, a rare seriousness in his tone. "She was my mentor. More like a terrifying elder sister who would actively try to get you killed."
"You were always dramatic," Da-li remarked, taking a casual sip of a drink that looked dark enough to dissolve copper. "I wasn't a teacher. I just pushed you into the fire to see if you'd melt. You didn't. That's your own achievement."
"Wait," the party's mage spoke up, her brow furrowed as she calculated the timeline. "Mr. Andrew is in his late thirties. If you knew him when he was a rookie... how do you still look like you're in your mid-twenties?"
The table went completely quiet. Andrew blinked, realizing he had actually never bothered to process that logic before.
Da-li took a slow, deliberate sip of her drink, letting the silence stretch just long enough to be uncomfortable. Then, she leaned forward.
"It's a trade secret. I hunt and drink the blood of young virgins." She locked her eyes directly onto the young mage. "Someone... exactly like you."
The girl's face drained of color. Andrew choked violently on his ale.
"Relax," Da-li chuckled, waving a hand. "I'm joking. Mostly."
"That's not a funny joke!" the girl squeaked.
"I look like this because that's just how I age," Da-li said, her tone flattening out into a dull, matter-of-fact statement.
"Dual-species?" the healer suggested, desperately looking for a normal explanation. "Mixed blood?"
"Pure breed," Da-li corrected simply.
Andrew laughed it off, trying to break the tension. "There she goes again. She loves messing with people's heads. Probably an elf or some ancient high-blood lineage. Don't let her get to you."
The group relaxed slightly, but the healer remained quiet. She noticed that Da-li wasn't laughing with them. She was just sitting there, watching them with the detached curiosity of a scientist looking at a bug in a jar.
"You had a massive fortune, Lady Da-li," Andrew said, his tone turning genuinely curious. "Why this? Why a backwater town?"
"I like being social," Da-li said, her eyes scanning the familiar, creaking wooden room. "And besides, I have the biggest house in this town. It's nice to have something to flex when the neighbors get annoying."
THUD.
A small, chaotic force slammed into Da-li's back. Da-li didn't even flinch, keeping her drink perfectly steady.
"Mother! I'm hungry!" Eunha yelled, dangling from Da-li's neck like a loud, unruly scarf.
"You're always hungry," Da-li replied smoothly, hoisting the child up without any effort. "Andrew, this is my younger daughter, Eunha. She's like Yuna, but with a hundred times more property damage."
Eunha slid to the floor and marched right up to the table. Without an ounce of hesitation, she snatched a piece of meat directly off Andrew's plate, took a massive bite, and pointed at one of the larger warriors.
"You look strong," she muttered around the food.
"Uh... thanks, kid."
"You'd still lose," she said flatly. "To me."
The warrior started to laugh, but the sound died in his throat. He caught her expression. For a fraction of a second, her eyes didn't look like a child's eyes at all. They were entirely empty, dark, and predatory.
"But I won't fight you," Eunha chirped, the eerie coldness vanishing as instantly as it had appeared. "I only fight bad people. Are you a bad person?"
"I... hope not," the warrior whispered, suddenly feeling very cold.
Late that night, Andrew lay in his bed, staring blindly at the dark ceiling. The absolute quiet of the rural inn felt entirely wrong. It was too heavy.
An old, jagged memory forced its way to the surface.
He was running for his life. A stupid rookie adventurer who had bitten off far more than he could chew. Behind him, an A-rank Minotaur was roaring, its massive hooves physically vibrating the dirt beneath his boots. He had tripped. He had accepted his death. He had even apologized to his parents in his head.
Then, a quiet blur.
A girl—no, a force of nature—had simply stepped past him. One single, unflashy slash. There was no shouting, no bright magic circles, just a clean, surgical sound.
The Minotaur's head had smoothly slid off its shoulders like a ball of soft clay. The massive body hit the dirt with a heavy thud that Andrew had felt in his teeth.
The girl had stood there, her back to him, blood slowly dripping from her blade.
Drop. Drop. Drop.
"Who... who are you?" he had stammered.
She had turned her head just enough for him to see her profile. Cold. Entirely composed. It wasn't the face of a proud hero saving a helpless rookie.
It was just the face of a storm that had passed through.
Andrew pulled the blankets tighter, the phantom sound of that dripping blood still echoing in the quiet room. Some things, no matter how many years passed, stayed exactly as sharp as the day they happened.